MORE = MOOOO or MOOOO = MORE

Capri is sooooo much fun right now! She is 12 months going to be 13 months very soon! Her little personality has just started to shine through. And buddy let me tell you, she is a red head! lol She makes me laugh every single day and I am constantly amazed at how much she is learning. I've been teaching her animal noises and she LOVES to learn them. So far she knows: Lion, Elephant, Dog, Penguin, Chicken, Cow, Car and Santa. We've been working on: Fish and Zebra. I know, these animal nosies seem a little out of the ordinary to learn first thing, but we've been looking through a couple of her favorite books that contain these animals. She also knows the words Mama (which has now turned into Mommy without the M...for whatever reason I'm not sure), Dada, Pop, Papaw, Kitty, Light, Ball and Drink. She can identify these items: Flower, Tree, Eye, Foot, Amos (out cat), Ho Ho Ho Santa, and Passy. It is absolutely crazy how much a child grows and learns within a year! And I LOVE IT!!! :)
I have to tell you a funny story that just happened tonight. Don is in bed sleeping, getting ready to go into work and I had to tell someone. So I called my Mom first thing!
Capri and I have been working on the sign language for the word MORE. We work on this while she eats. She has done it a few times while she tries to say the word More...which just kinda comes out mmmmmm. Like I said above, we've also been working on animal noises and she has learned the noise for a cow. Tonight I introduced a new book that was full of different items to learn. We were going over a few.....tiger, butterfly, boy, girl...and I notice Capri is doing the sign for MORE and is making that mmmmm noise. I look over the pictures that we were looking at and at the bottom was a big black and white cow. She was staring right at it, putting her little hands and fingers together, nocking them back and forth! I was so proud that she was doing the sign just right! But why was she looking at the cow and saying more?...and that's when it hit me! She thinks the sign language sign for MORE means MOOOO for a cow!!! lol I cracked up! The word MORE and MOOOO in Capri's world sounds the same. So I guess our little one has come up with her own version of signing! WOW! And then I think, what a smart little girl to put those sounds together along with a picture of a cow and think of the sign for more! Gosh, it's just amazing to me what her little brain thinks!

Quick update

Gosh! I just realized that I haven't posted anything on my blog since September! I am falling way behind!
Capri turned 1 in November and I LOVE the age that she is at. She is soooo much fun at this point and I already dread her growing up into such a big girl. She is just so precious right now!
Christmas is approaching us so quickly. Here we are just the week before Christmas and I still can't believe that it's almost here. Then comes New Years and then Valentines Day. Then I personally start to feel like winter is over and "bring on the warm days and flowers!" :) But until then I love to see snow on the ground, drink hot coco, eat warm dinners and spend evenings full of friends, family and laughter! Winter is upon us folks!
Well I hope you all enjoy the new picture I placed at the top of my blog. It is one of new favorites of our Little Miss!

My School

Clearwater Baptist Church, here in Athens, offers something for pre-schoolers called "My School". For 9 months - 3 years is basically a mothers day out program. Due to things going on in our lives, Don and I have thought about putting little miss into a program like this. That way I can get some work done with my graphic design job and then also get some work done around the house and not have to overload anyone in the family. We came across My School because we attend church at Clearwater. This program is twice a week, Monday and Wednesday, from 9am to 2pm, which gives me five hours to get some work done. :) And today was Capri's first day at school! This morning we got up bright and early, had our morning bottle, breakfast and then out the door we went at 8:30am. I truely feel Capri will have a great time playing with all the kids and will also give her some time outside of our "home". I really don't want her to get too attached to me and not be able to go with other people. So I'm hoping this program with help her with that.
Today, I did not have to get any work done, so it's been pretty empty here at the house. :( It's crazy how all I can think about is my nasty home and all the other things I need to be doing but I can not because Capri takes up so much of my time. And then on a day that I don't have to be sitting in front of the computer working, or washing dishes, clothes, floors, or toilets....all I can think about is wonder what Capri is doing?! I'm assuming this is totally normal for a mother. I kinda feel guilty because I put my little girl in a "day care" so mommy can relax. But as my husband said..."it is called mother's day out for a reason." So I guess I need to think about it that way, and just know that she is having fun! Please let me know if this is a totally normal conversation to be having in my head!!!!!
Well, it is 1:21pm and I guess I need to be getting up and off to pick up my little one. Back to a noisy house.

Here she is, in the car and ready to get off to school for the first time!

9 months

Our baby girl is now 9 months old. Wow as time flown by! Here is our latest picture of our precious doll!

Capri's 1st Vacation

Don, Capri and I went on vacation for the first time as a family this year. Capri is 8.5 months old and we really wanted her to enjoy the ocean for the first time! We went to the Outer Banks, NC and stayed with a couple that live in Kill Devil Hills, NC. They had a little boy that is 6 weeks older than Capri. When we left TN Capri was "army crawling" but by the end of the week, seeing Jared crawl, Capri was crawling like a big girl! She had a BLAST playing with the "big" kids, swimming in the pool, playing on the beach in the sand, and taking a dip in the ocean. We were so thankful that God allowed us to have this time as a family! Here we are on the banks of the Atlantic Ocean in NC playing in the sand with Capri! What an awesome memory!!!

photo taken by: j.lillard

Update

Capri went back to the doctor to have her ears checked again. The doctor gave her an exam and then a certain test that would check her ears for fluid. She looked much better but the test revealed that she had some fluid still behind her ear drum. We are to keep a eye on it to make sure that it gets better at her next well check.

Still Sick but getting better!

So as I posted before, Capri has had an ear infections. I noticed after her round of antibiotics that she was still pulling on her ear. We ended up going to the doctor again because I just knew she wasn't over it. The first round of meds helped clear up one of her ears but not totally on the other. So now we are on another round of 10 day antibiotics. I think this set is helping because I haven't noticed any pulling...just playing with the "other" ear that wasn't infected anymore. I'm just wondering if she is just now discovering her ears? Either way, I'm just glad that she's not up crying half the night because her ears are hurting.
On a happier note...Capri is saying Mama! She has been saying mama and dada for a while now. (Dada was actually first!) But she never really seemed to relate me to mama and Don to dada. But the other day I had to go out to work for a couple of hours and when I left she was sitting at the glass door crying. When I got home, Don said that she was saying Mama as I left. Then I started noticing that she will say mama when she fussy and wanting me to pick her up. So, I guess she realizes that I am Mama now! YEAH! That makes me smile everytime, even if she is crying!
Here is my new faviorte picture of Capri. Don and I got some new porch furniture and here Capri is playing with her duck on the swing. (I think by this time the duck had fallen on the floor) I was saying "uh-o-spaghetti-o" as the duck was falling to the ground and little miss thought that was sooo funny!!! So here she is laughing away!

photo by: a.nation

Sick Baby

Last week....Wednesday, June 30th, I kept Avery, my brother's little boy, so Austin (my brother) and his girlfriend, Kala, could go see a movie. This was the very first time that Avery had ever stayed with me alone, not to mention that Kala is a stay at home mom and only her and Granny (my mom) are the two that he is comfortable staying with. That morning Avery woke up with a cough. Austin called me to make sure it was still okay for me to watch him. At that time I asked if he had a runny nose...and the answer was no. So, sure, I decided that he could still come over. By that afternoon when Avery go here, he had a rough sounding cough, not that often though, and a runny nose. I thought...everything will be fine. Capri will take her naps like she usually does and they won't be around each other for longer than 2 hours. Every time Avery sneezed, I washed his hand with sanitizer, cleaned his nose, then washed my hands before touching Capri. She took her naps like usual and they were not around each other too long.
Avery did NOT have a good time!!! Lets just say he cried and slept! The poor guys was fine for 30 minutes after his mommy and daddy left. Then he realized they weren't there and stood at the door crying. I finally got him calmed down after 15 minutes, then he played for a little while until he realized they were gone again. After this I had him lay down on the couch, watch cartoons, drink some juice..and off to sleep he went.
Saturday, July 3rd...Mom brought Austin, Kala, Avery, and Destiny to Athens so we could all go swimming at Don's parents house. We stayed for an hour and a half and then back to our house we went. The crew stayed for a little while and then I decided to go back to Birchwood and spend the night since Don had to work.
Sunday, July 4th, I went to church with Mom and Dad...spent most of the day in Birchwood with the rest of the family for our 4th of July cookout. I started to notice then that Capri was very whinny and only wanted me. I just thought this was something new that she had started. After lunch at Nonnie and Pops, we headed back home so my old roomie Lori could come and spend the evening with me so I wouldn't be alone. We rented a girly movie and talked "girl talk". Right before I put Capri down for bed, I noticed she was a little warmer than usual, but she wasn't running a fever.
Monday, July 5th...Don and I got up early and headed to Birchwood again. That was the day Mom was have dinner at her house for the 4th. I spent the morning helping her get ready for Dinner...hotdogs, chips, potato salad, slaw, apple pie, homemade icecream, and watermellon...All American! Don had to leave early so he could get home in time for work, so Mom offered to take me home later. (This would be the 3rd day in a row that Capri was with Avery)
Tuesday and Wednesday Capri was very fussy all day long...by this time she had developed a little cough, a lot of sneezing, and a stuffy nose. Wednesday night she woke up at 5am crying. I ended up having to get her out of bed to come lay with Me and Don. Even then she would cry but we were not sure what was going on.
Thursday night, Capri woke up at 1am crying...but I got her back to sleep. Then she woke up again at 3am. This time Don went in to calm her down, but nothing worked. I got up and we both just held her, rocked her, cleaned out her nose...we did everything we knew to do and still nothing helped. We finally decided to give her some tylenol and after an hour of crying she finally went back to sleep. Once I started thinking about it, I noticed that when we would lay her down, she would scream. So I pulled on one of her ears and terrible crying she did. So, Capri slept on my belly the rest of the night.
Friday, July 9th, I called and made an appointment early with her doctor, and yep, the little girl has a double ear infection. :( So they have put her on antibiotics and tylenol. So hopefully she is on the right track to feeling better!

A desire to change

Lately I've been desiring to be the best that I can possible be! I want to be the best Christian that I can be, the best Wife that I need to be, the best Mother that I can be, best Daughter, Grand-daughter, Sister, Friend, In-Law, and Artist that I can possible be! I want to live my life 100% and I want to show LOVE!!! I know that I can NOT do all of that to the fullest without Gods help! I've asked him to give me the encouragement and strength to do all that I do to the fullest.

Wayne has been preaching on "Sawdust". He says that as Christians, we can sometimes eat more sawdust than oats. This means that we get used to the things of the world and place them above God and learning his word. Man, did I feel like he was talking to ME! Before Capri was born I went to God for everything. I studied my Bible to deepen my relationship with him. The more I read and learned, the more I wanted to read and learn. My relationship with God was growing! Once Capri got here, I put her above my relationship with God. I put my role as a Wife and as a Mother before everything and everyone. Now I have to change! I want my love for God to be as before. I want to desire to study his word again. I want to desire to worship again. I want to desire to love everyone and to show Gods love to everyone again. But most of all, I desire to be the best that I can be through God! My prayer is that anyone who knows me or anyone that I may come in contact with will see Gods love in me!

photo by: a.nation

Half of a YEAR!!!

photo taken by: a.nation

Our little one is 6 months old today! I can not believe it!!!! And to just think that in 6 more months she will be 1 years old...WOW!! This is our latest pic of little Miss...turning half a year!

Our Anniversary

photo taken by: a.nation

Don and I got married on May 20, 2007, three years ago. Man how time flies, but then if I stop and think about everywhere we have lived...lol...it seems like a long time.
We got married at Patton Chapel, which is the beautiful brick chapel on UTC Campus. I was not a student there, but when I was a teenager I went to a wedding there and I always said from that moment on that I was gonna get married in that church...and we did! We then had the reception at the Chattanoogan Hotel downtown. My wedding was the dream wedding I had been wanting since I was a small girl!
After Don and I got married, I was still in school at Austin Peay in Clarksville, we lived with my grandparents for the summer while I worked at Drs. Dearmond and Jones and Don went through the Police Academy at Cleveland State. Once school started back for me, I lived with a friend in Clarksville for a couple of weeks until Don was finished with the Academy. We then got an apartment together with my college roomate and lived there for 8/9 months. And I must say, these apartments were great! We will never find another just like those! While I was going to school Don found a sercurity guard job and worked there until April. In April of 2008, Don moved back home so he could start his job at the Police Department in Athens. I finished up school and graduated in May '08 with a Bacholor of Fine Arts for Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN. I then moved back, along with all of our things, and we then lived with my parents for 3 months. At the first of August 2008, Don and I bought our first house, in Athens. This is where we currently live with a new addition....Capri!
Don and I have been married for 3 years and can't wait for all the others years to come, new additions that may follow and to see what God has instore for our lives!
I love you Don with all of my heart and I look forward to spending the rest of my life with such and amazing Husband as you! :) Thank you for all that you do and for being the best partner there is!

My little one

pic taken by: a.nation

Capri is now 5 months and two weeks old! My, how time has just flown by! This little girl is growing like a weed. She is now smiling, laughing out loud, rolling over to her belly and the back to her back, she picking up small objects and is eating cereal at dinner. WOW, what a big girl! :)
I never thought being a Mother would be so hard!!! Infact, at first I thought I was just thinking it was going to be so hard...but NO, it's true....it is HARD! And, I am a stay at home/work at home (when I get the business) Mom, which is even harder!!!! Being at home and working in the home sometimes gets me down. I see Don with this whole other life (well that's what it seems like) at work...with his friends and different responsibillites...and it makes me feel like I have no other life than Capri, Don, Me and our Household. And it is ruff! And to top it all off, I want to have more kids....so I know that it's only going to get worse. But, a friend of my said that Capri is still very little and I am still transitioning into be a Mommy! And she is so right!
But don't get me wrong...I love Capri with all my heart and soul, and I have not doubt in my mind that she was created by God and was in His plans for mine and Dons life. No DOUBT!!! Being a Mom is hard, but I couldn't imaging my life without her in it!

Earth Day

Here is our little girl on Earth Day! We celebrated Earth day by planting a red-bud tree in our yard. Last year we had our maple tree in our back yard to split all the way to the ground during a windy storm. We ended up having to have the tree cut down. So this year we decided to add another tree to the back yard! :D What a great way to enjoy mother earth and to thank God for what he has given us!

Growing up

Today Capri had her follow-up appointment with her G.I. Doctor. We have had such issues with her doctors. First it was her ped. so we changed, then it was her g.i. ped, so we changed again. This time we changed to a doctor in cleveland. (well he comes to his office in cleveland once a week.) His name is Dr. Laman. We LOVED him!!! Capri is doing great. He talked to us a little bit about when to start her on baby food. Cereal at 4 months, then baby food at 6. Start with vegtables first, doing one vegtable at a time to see if she has a reaction to any of them, then go to fruits. "Don't do fruits first because she may like the sweetness of them and not want to eat her veggies." Once she starts getting a little older we have to start reading labels. Avoid anything that has: milk, soy, caserin, and whey in them. Then at 18 months she will have a milk allergy test on her skin to make sure that she doesn't have an anafilactic reation to the milk. If she doesn't then we can introduce milk into her diet. If she then has a g.i. reation to milk, we have to wait until she is 2 to try again. But, he is hopeing that she'll grow out of the intolerance by the time she is 1. We're going to keep her on Prevacid once a day and then drop the dosses of Zantac to once a day at bed time. After about 3 weeks we can try and take her off the Zantac to see if there is much of a difference. So, that's the update on little Capri!

So I'm a little down

This post is more for myself, so I can get a few things off my chest.
I, as a mother, has decided to put Capri on a schedule. It is hard! In fact, I often doubt myself and even question my choice in doing so because it is so much WORK!!! Often, I go to others for advice, being Capri as my first child, I want to make sure that I am doing the best that I can. I know that each child is different and that what works for one may not work for the other. So I am on a mission to find out what works best for my little one! There is that someone that I, and as many others may know through their own experiences, go to the most! The one that you are the closest to. The one you know that will give you an answer because she has gone through the same things. The one that you feel most comfortable talking with. But, because I am not doing what she did, I feel a little frustration there and it brakes my heart! Frustration on my end because I want someone to help me and to tell me what I should try and what I should not do. And I want support in the decisions that I make. I feel frustration on her end because I am not doing what she did, so she can't relate to me in that way to help.
Now, I feel like I am on my own. Which I guess it is time for me to step up to the plate. Its time to stop asking for advice from everyone around me, and just do what I feel is the best for Capri. I just feel like the more I open my mouth about what I'm doing with Capri, the more I'm getting judged...by everyone! I am just down and in need of a great deal of encouragement.

Capri did GREAT!

We dedicated our little girl on Sunday at Clearwater. I was a little nervous about taking her to church, for this was the first time that she had been there since she was born. We have finally got her on somewhat of a schedule, so she ate at 8:30am and then nap time started at 10:00am. The service that we took her to was at 9:30am, so it was right before her nap time. Sometimes when she gets sleepy and we aren't at home for me to put her in her bed, she get VERY fussy. But not on Sunday, she was such a good girl! :) We dedicated her at the beginning of the service and she was asleep in my arms by 10am. I was so proud of her, she did great!

Dedication

As most of you know, Don and I have had trialing times with little miss Capri. For those of you who do not know, I will give you a quick summery. Doctor kept telling us that our 24 hr screaming baby was just colic. After blood in her stool, come to find out that she had a milk allergy. We took her off breastmilk and went through a few different formulas to get her back to normalcy. Then Capri developed RSV..which is a respiratory virus and can be bad for little ones to get. After a trip to the ER and two appointments with her (new) doctor, they finally put her on breathing treatments. After she got over that virus, her reflux started acting up again. Then, over this past weekend it just came to a peek, the girl quit eating but every 6 hours (and even then it was a struggle. Sometimes it will take us 1hr to get her to eat 4oz). So her G.I. doctor works us in on tuesday and puts her on prevacid, along with the zantac that she was already on and tells us to try and take her off reglan unless we notice a big change in her throwing up. Wednesday morning I get up and feed her at 5am then put her back down to sleep until 8am. When I get up at 8am, there is throwup all over her bed, the wedge that she sleeps on, her blanket, and all down the back of her clothes. So I guess its back on reglan for a while, along with prevacid and zantac. I'm not sure what God is teaching me, but I'm sure it's something important!!!

All that said...Sunday we are dedicating out little one to the Lord at Clearwater. We are wanting to publicly say "Lord, here is our child. We bring her to you and ask that you will teach us and guide us to enstore your teachings into this baby girl!" I would love for any of my readers to make it, it's at the 9:30am service. But if you can't please pray for us during that time; that God will work in our little family at that special moment.

Here are the invitations that I designed for Capri's dedication.

My Baby Girl!

And always thank God for what he has done, for he knows what he is doing! :)

How much does you milk cost???

Okay, let me updated everyone while I have a brief moment in mommy-hood as Capri sleeps! Capri was born on November 30th weighing in at 7lbs and 11oz. We came home and everything was grand until the end of wk 2! This is when it started...screams and cries all day long!!! Her Dr. kept telling me that it was just colic and to keep giving her gas drops every time she eats. This continued on for a month...let me tell you God was looking on me because that's been one of the hardest times..EVER!!! Finally we went back to the Dr. because she quit eating. This time the Dr. told me to try her on formula or a really strict diet...we decided with the formula. (I also have a cousin where her kids did the same thing, so shes been helping me out.) Come to find out little Capri has a milk allergy. We get her on this formula and everything totally changes...she smiling, cooing, being a totally normal baby....uh...for a week and a half! Then blood shows up in her stool and everything starts all over again!!! Lucky my cousin is also a nurse and tells me what kind of formula to try next. Now, this is where we are at this point. Capri has a G.I. appt on Wednesday at 10am, so were hoping that he can tell us where we need to go from here. Just be in prayer that Capri will get better, stay on this formula, and that wick will be able to cover this expensive stuff shes eating these days!